"I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene"
About this Quote
The timing matters. “Twelve years ago” places us in the early 2010s, when far-right aesthetics and rhetoric were re-entering European public life with a grim remix: coded nationalism, “heritage” talk, and subcultural pipelines that often run straight through music. Ribot’s emphasis that the resurgence was “in the places we were touring” makes it concrete. This isn’t a distant headline; it’s the room you’re playing tonight, the promoter you’re trusting, the chants outside.
Subtext: he’s refusing the musician’s classic alibi of neutrality. In a live setting, silence can read as consent, and ambiguity can be weaponized by reactionaries looking for cultural cover. Claiming Jewish identity becomes an act of anti-fascist clarity: it dares the audience to locate themselves in relation to a living community, not a museum tragedy.
There’s also a tactical intelligence here. Musicians can’t out-legislate extremists, but they can poison the vibe extremists depend on - the sense that they’re normal, inevitable, welcome. Ribot is describing art as boundary-setting, not escapism.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Perfiles: Marc Ribot (Interview by Efren del Valle) (Marc Ribot, 2002)
Evidence:
In 1991 I believed that it was a good idea for Jewish musicians who were touring in Europe. I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene.. This quote comes from an interview with Marc Ribot conducted by Efren del Valle dated December 24, 2002 (as stated on a reprint). The wording widely circulated on quote-aggregator sites appears to be lifted from this interview section discussing John Zorn/Tzadik's Radical Jewish Culture context. I was able to verify the wording directly from a repost that explicitly attributes the interview and date, and I also found the original TomaJazz page URL, but my web fetch of the TomaJazz page failed due to a Unicode decoding error in the tool. The reposted transcript matches the cited passage and includes the interview/date context, suggesting the primary/original publication is TomaJazz's "Perfiles" interview page. |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ribot, Marc. (2026, February 16). I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-claimed-identity-as-jewish-musicians-for-160486/
Chicago Style
Ribot, Marc. "I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-claimed-identity-as-jewish-musicians-for-160486/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-claimed-identity-as-jewish-musicians-for-160486/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.
